TOBY TYLER;
OR, TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS.
BY JAMES OTIS.
Chapter IX.
THE DINNER PARTY.
At noon Toby was thoroughly tired out, for whenever any one spoke kindly to him, Mr. Lord seemed to take a malicious pleasure in giving him extra tasks to do, until Toby began to hope that no one else would pay any attention to him. On this day he was permitted to go to dinner first, and after he returned he was left in charge of the booth. Trade being dull, as it usually was during the dinner hour, he had very little work to do after he had cleaned the glasses and set things to rights generally.
Therefore when he saw the very thin form of the skeleton emerge from his tent and come toward him, he was particularly pleased, for he had begun to think very kindly of the thin man and his fleshy wife.
"Well, Toby," said the skeleton, as he came up to the booth, carefully dusted Mr. Lord's private chair, and sat down very cautiously in it, as if he had expected that it would break down under his weight, "I hear you've been making quite a hero of yourself by capturing the monkeys last night."
Toby's freckled face reddened with pleasure as he heard these words, and he stammered out, with considerable difficulty, "I didn't do anything; it was Mr. Stubbs that brought 'em back."
"Mr. Stubbs!" and here the skeleton laughed so heartily that Toby was afraid he would dislocate some of his thinly covered joints. "When you was tellin' about Mr. Stubbs yesterday, I thought you meant some one belonging to the company. You ought to have seen my wife Lilly shake with laughing when I told her who Mr. Stubbs was."